I want to indicate to the House it's my attention to support the amendment moved by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition on this bill and to oppose the Higher Education Support Legislation Amendment (A More Sustainable, Responsive and Transparent Higher Education System) Bill 2017. I'd like to first of all go through some of the detail of the bill and why I think it should be opposed and also address how that will impact in my own local area. This particular piece of legislation has been debated around not only this place for a while now but also in our communities. I can assure the parliament that it is very hard to find anybody on the grounds of my own university at Wollongong who has any affection for these particular so-called reforms that the government has encapsulated in this bill, the 'triple-whammy bill'.
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MS BIRD (CUNNINGHAM) (19:03): I thank the member for Indi for bringing this matter before the parliament. She very accurately reflects the fact that, for regional areas, the presence and activities of our universities are very significant to us. In my own area, the University of Wollongong is a world-class provider of education and research, and that is critically important. But, just as importantly to us as a region, it's also a major employer—in fact, it's one of the top five employers in our region now. It's a place of a significant number of small businesses, in terms of the sorts of facilities that are provided there. It's a partner with many other industries and businesses in developing emerging opportunities in our region to make sure that innovation and new opportunities are grasped across the region.
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MS BIRD (CUNNINGHAM) (16:49): Last Monday was a very sad day for my electorate. On that day we lost two wonderful people—one who'd grown up as a young man and then left our region to go onto the national stage, and the other who came to our region as a young man and then stayed for his lifetime, contributing to our local community. Both were extremely important to the surf lifesaving movement of the Illawarra.
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Ms BIRD (Cunningham) (16:07) We have reached the final sitting hours of an extraordinary two weeks in this place. The MPI before us goes to the heart of what the problem is with the way this parliament is operating. Members opposite say that they want to talk about the things that really matter in their electorates. Well so do we. Last week, we had to deal with the fact that we had a government which, in its throes of division, decided the answer to the problem of resolving marriage equality in Australia was to throw $122 million at a non-compulsory, non-binding postal survey, for which we can't even be sure that they have the process tied down in a correct way that will deliver a fair say to all people.
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Today we sit in this place on the last sitting day of this week of parliament and what a week it has been. We have seen this week the blatant display of the absolute double standard of the government in how they apply rules when they are involved, as opposed to how they apply rules when ordinary constituents in my electorate are affected. We started this week on Monday with the most extraordinary outcome of the parliament having to unanimously carry a motion to refer the Deputy Prime Minister of this nation to the High Court for a determination on whether he is actually eligible to sit in this place. The rules in that circumstance are in the Constitution. The Deputy Prime Minister said, when he was happy to jump on the bandwagon on the back of Greens senators having to resign: 'They are black and white. It's just sloppiness that would mean that you weren't complying with them.'
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MS BIRD (CUNNINGHAM) (11:14): I thank the member for Lalor for putting this very important motion before the chamber and I reflect that, like both the member for Lalor and the member for Groom, when the Four Corners program recently aired I also had a lot of locals contacting me very distressed by what were quite shocking and appalling expose in that particular program.
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MS BIRD (CUNNINGHAM) (10:34): A fortnight ago, the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party had our state conference. One of the parts of the conference that I particularly enjoy is the time in which we celebrate party members who have received life membership. I'm sure my colleagues across the chamber will have local people in their party branches who don't seek anything out of their work but who just believe in our democracy and value their opportunity to participate in the political process. They get out there on rainy, cold elections and stinking hot elections, beating the path and doing all the work to make sure those elections can happen in a way that is really inclusive in this country. I really value and appreciate that.
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MS BIRD (CUNNINGHAM) (10:42): Last night I left this place sick with anger. I was furious about the comments made by Senator Hanson in the education debate about children with autism. I was so angry about it that I did not trust myself to be able to speak about it; I was really, really hurt on behalf of people. When I opened my Facebook, a very good friend of mine, Judy Sharp, had put up a post. Her son Tim is an internationally famous artist; he is better known as Laser Beak Man. If people want to look at his work, it is laserbeakman.com. He has an amazing life story. I sent Judy a message and asked her if she would you like to put her words on the record in this parliament because you have so much more to offer than what the senator had to say.
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MS BIRD (CUNNINGHAM) (14:14): My question is to the Prime Minister. Data released by the New South Wales government shows that, because of the Prime Minister's $22 billion cut to schools, in the electorate of Gilmore over the next two years over $1.3 million will be cut from Nowra East Public School and over $890,000 will be cut from Sanctuary Point Public School. Has the member for Gilmore made any representations at all to the Prime Minister about these cuts to schools in her electorate?
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MS BIRD (CUNNINGHAM) (11:27): There is an opportunity in this parliament quite often to talk about the issues that are of real concern to your local constituents. Today I want to address an issue that has been consistently raised with me for a long time now. Before the election, we had a real debate happening about the future of Medicare in this country. I think, absolutely accurately, serious concerns were expressed about what this government, if they were returned, would do to continue the attacks that they had been launching on Medicare.
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